Strange Happenings
by Silverleone
Summary: Taiki, Jefferson, Jargon and Zeke are a team of explorers that are going to investigate a new planet. Strange things are on this planet, things that are NOT nice. Will these four crusaders survive this ordeal? Or will they be the last humans they see? Hiatus, possibly permanent.
1. Chapter 1

_Computer: Speech_

 _Thoughts: Speech_

 **Author: Speech**

 _Cryogenic Stasis: Status: Release_

I slowly opened my eyes and then started blinking rapidly to let my eyes adjust to the bright lights. I heard a hiss as the latch to my CryoPod released, allowing me to exit the pod. I grasped the side of the pod to gain my balance, then walked over to my designated locker.

I should probably introduce myself before I start. My name is Rei Taiki and I'm probably your average nerdy looking guy. Being a blonde haired, blue eyed, lighter-skinned 23 year old, I stand at about 5'7", with half-rimmed, gun-metal-gray glasses. I know, I know, a white guy with a foreign name. Explanation: My parents had moved to Japan before I was born, and they found the name fitting.

To most people, I don't look like much. My attire is a gray v-neck, jeans and regular tennis shoes. When I opened the locker, a brown long coat rests on a hanger. I pull it out and whip it around and pull my arms through so it rests on my shoulders. A necklace made of tightly woven black fabric can be seen hanging in the back of the locker, a small hook holding it in place. I reach in and unclip, then reclip it around my neck. I grasp it and look at the quartz, tear-drop shaped pendent. Burnt into it, is a Zuni Bear. The Bear symbolizes courage, physical strength, and leadership. The Heartline symbolizes life force.

When I was around 7, I had expressed interest in the uses of weapons in Martial Arts. When I turned 10, and after a LOT of convincing, my parents signed me up in a martial arts school, one that specializes in Japanese weaponry. I eventually saved up enough money to get a native smith to forge a custom made Katana...once I was old enough, of course. It's a bit shorter than the standard Katana to compensate for my _"lack of height"_ according to my instructors _._ I leave that leaning in the back of the locker, not needing it on the ship.

Oh, that's right, you have no idea where I am. Sorry, I got sidetracked! I'm on a special task force assigned to navigate, map, and identify a new solar system. It has only two possibly habitable planets, and it was my team's job to see if it was truly worth the trip for humanity. We were approximately 150 light-years away from the edge our Solar system, let alone Earth itself. I approached the cock pit and entered my ID into the slot above keypad. The doubly reinforced Tungsten door slid open with a hiss. I walked through and headed straight to the main cockpit seat. I stopped right beside it and looked out into the impossibly black void we call space. The ship we were on was the trusty _Starlight._ We were traveling approximately 5,000 miles a minute, or 300,000 miles an hour, and were slowly decreasing the speed. Old girl's capable of speeds 7x what we were going. And that's on a slow day.

"Oh, you're up. Thought I heard the door."

"Morning Jefferson, how we doing." Jefferson and I had both been on this crew from the start, and had gone through five other team members. Whenever they quite, for some reason they always put a "Crazy complaint" as we fondly dubbed it. Apparently we were too insane to be safe traveling with.

Honestly though, we'd freak them out until they couldn't handle it. Especially if they were jerks. A few times the complaints were so bad the Top Dog himself had to come down and ask what happened, just to clear things up.

And for a laugh. We were all great pals, and Jefferson and I never went out of line...well...We kind of blurred the lines a bit one time. But hey, that guy was actually a thief, so we stole some of his useless stuff and jettisoned it into a gas giant we had been passing.

"About as well as you'd expect. Man, I'm glad my Girlfriend couldn't come, I'd have to force her into a CryoPod just so she'd shut up."

"Didn't you tell me you were gonna break up with her three months ago?"

"Yeah, but then she went and got us an all expense paid trip to the Moon, no idea how though." I chuckled.

"You know she's using you right? She knows about the insurance pay out for any Space Militia." I sat down in the chair next to me and sighed. "She's just wanting to get the insurance money if something were to happen to you." Jefferson and I looked at each other and he sighed as well.

"Oh sure, I'll just say, "Oh hey Monica, I don't think you love me, and only want the money you get when I die." 'Cause that won't get me _shot."_ I snorted.

"Nah, if it were me I'd just say I don't like long distance relationships."

"Yeah, but you're smoother than I am when I comes to these things man!" I gave a short "Hah!" then smiled.

"Hardly dude, my first break up was a disaster! I had to break up over text, other wise I _would_ have gotten shot!" He stared at me.

"How are you alive...?" I shrugged.

"All I know is if it wasn't for this team, I'd still be flying by the seat of my pants with my last girlfriend. I had no idea how or when to make the next move, so I kept buying her gifts."

"Ouch..."

"Anyways, enough about my sappy life, the others awake?" We had two other crew members on board the _Starlight_ , the ship we had been assigned to.

"Zeke is, Jargon's still in stasis."

Jargon and Ezekiel, or Zeke, were the other two, and they had decided that they like our style of working with team members. Jargon was more of a no-nonsense guy, but could relax with a beer in his hand. Zeke was more of the "let's get 'er done" kind of guy. Jefferson and I both could relax without needed alcohol, which I didn't drink in the first place, and were the practical jokers of the group.

Jefferson was had a head of crew cut brown hair, keeping it short because of his status as captain of the ship. He had a generally fit build.

Zeke was from the southern part of the States, giving him an obvious accent. He had a bit of a belly, but only because he was the main mechanic on the ship. He didn't have a lot to do other than stare at a screen.

Jargon was a very athletic person. At times he had a bit of an ego, but was all around a nice guy. He would often be in the workout room, trying to always look his best.

I myself was security detail. I had to make sure no one got hurt in some stupid way, or killed in an invasion. Neither of those ever happened before, so I took up the computers as well, making it my secondary job to monitor the entire ship's status.

 _ ***Hissss***_

"Alright, we're officially set to land." Zeke walked in, rubbing his hands with a cloth. I turned and walked over to him, we clapped hands.

"Nice to see you after a long sleep."

"Good to see you're awake and well. Jargon still in Cryo?" Jefferson took his turn to shake Zeke's hand.

"Yeah, brat's probably set it to wake him up when we land." We shared a small chuckle. The entire monitor right in front of Jefferson's chair blinked red for a moment.

"Hey, you guys see that?" I walked over and looked at the panel, trying to see what happened. Zeke was confused. He had been staring out the window right above it when I'd said something, and he didn't see anything.

"What're you talking 'bout? I didn't see anything." The other two walked over and Jefferson sat down. He started rapidly shifting through the various files, documents, and alerts, most false alarms, to see nothing. Until he reached the desktop. The whole thing was a blindingly red color, pulsing in and out.

"When'd you change that?" I leaned over his shoulder

"I didn't." I jerked back slightly. He wasn't joking, I could tell. He looked up at me.

"Wake Jargon."

 **I hope you have enjoyed the first chapter. Now, before I get your expectations up, I will be leaving for a mission for my church soon. I have no idea exactly when, but this story is going to be on a definite two year Hiatus while I'm gone. Also, I have a HTTYD story up. I've written chapter 1-25 as of 4/8/17, and I'm going to have to upload chapters 8-25 in mass. I have no idea how many chapters of this I will get out before I leave, but I hope at least ten!**

 **~Silverleone**


	2. Chapter 2

(Last Chapter)

Jefferson started rapidly shifting through the various files, documents, and alerts, most false alarms, to see nothing. Until he reached the desktop. The whole thing was a blindingly red color, pulsing in and out.

"When'd you change that?" I leaned over his shoulder

"I didn't." I jerked back slightly. He wasn't joking, I could tell. He looked up at me. "Wake Jargon."

(Present Time)

I was booking it down to the CryoPods. While I was the main computer guy, I still had no idea what to do. I was simultaneously running a search while shifting through my datapad, looking for anything close to "blinking red desktop". I didn't find anything before I reached the room with the pods, so I pocketed the pad and swiped my ID. I jogged over to the last pod on the right, slamming my hand on the release button. There was a hiss, and the chamber opened. Out stepped Jargon. And of course, he was shirtless. I shook my head and pulled out my datapad to see what the search had pulled.

 _He's like the reverse of a perv...aaaaand the search was useless._

"Hey man! We land yet?" He sounded cheery, quite the opposite of what I felt.

"First, I knew it. Second, you're needed on the bridge." He started walking over to his locker, stretching his recently unused limbs.

"Alright, just lemme ge-"

"Jargon. Now." His head snapped around to look at me. I was normally relaxed around him, never worrying about actually _ordering_ him to do something. So for me to be giving short and crisp orders meant there was something wrong. He whipped open his locker, grabbed a shirt and threw it on. Grabbing his ID tag off the hook, he turned and nodded to me. I turned and we booked it back to the bridge. As we were running he looked over.

"So what's the big hurry? I thought we had another," He looked at his watch, "Five days till we landed." The grim look I was wearing only grew bigger.

"We do. Jefferson, Zeke and I were just meeting up after I woke up, not even 20 minutes ago. We were talking, when I saw Jefferson's monitor blink red. Turns out, his desktop changed."

"Yeah so?"

 _"He_ didn't change it." I jabbed my ID card into the slot and impatiently waited for it to read the card. When the doors _finally_ opened, I squeezed through without waiting for them to fully open.

 _Curse these slow doors!_

"Status." I barked. I didn't normally snap at the others, but for some reason, that red light was making me nervous. It almost felt instinctual to run from it.

"Nothing changed, but it shows my desktop should be set to what it was." Jargon jumped in.

"Which was?"

"A 3D blueprint of the Starlight." Jargon snorted and mumbled "nerd". I reached over and whacked him up the back side of the head.

"D-hey!"

"This isn't time for joking Jargon."

"You're right, sorry." I nodded and leaned over, looking at the screen again.

"Have you tried changing it? Maybe your background bugged out."

"Tried that, it stays the same." I stopped and thought for a minute.

"This is going to sound really old school, but does this computer have a sort of task manager?"

"Actually, yes. Why didn't I think of that?" I put my hand on his shoulder as he opened the small window. We all looked long and hard at the different programs. There were probably 50 in total. Zeke's hand jerked forward and pointed to one program.

"What's that one?" Jefferson quickly brought up a summary of the program. We were starting to read through it when the monitor shut off.

"What?! No, no, no, come on!" Jefferson was hitting multiple buttons, seemingly at random. I was actually getting worried.

"What happened?!" Stuff like this only happened if someone was trying to get in your system, and once they were in... The monitor suddenly came back online, everything back to normal. The files and other various programs that had been open were there, and when Jefferson moved or minimized them, the 3D model of the Starlight was slowly spinning in the background. The task manager summary of that strange program Zeke had pointed out was suddenly a movie viewing program. We all traded glances. I cleared my throat nervously.

"Play it." Jefferson clicked the play button, and we watched as words slowly filtered across the screen. He read them out loud.

"This planet is under quarantine, if you are willing to be shot down, continue in your current path. If not, keep your ship out of orbit...You have been warned..." We all looked up to the huge viewing window. Just out of our direct path was a planet.

"Jefferson slow us down! I don't want to be near that thing if they actually have weapons!"

"On it!" I bolted over to my personal station and pulled up a magnified view of the planet on the big screen, which doubled as the view window. It appeared to be mostly water, with only the rare island showing up. When I pulled thermals, there were some big but faint heat signatures.

"Jefferson, what planet is this? And check that quarantine status, make sure it's legit." He was moving through the logs and databases faster than I thought possible. He stopped, touched a file, and swiped towards the top of his screen. The digital viewing window split in half. One for his info, and the other for the stuff I had pulled up.

"Planet designated as SubNautica. **(Sorry, this is a fanfic about space, so I had to. But this has nothing to do with SubNautica, it's just a little passing plot.)** It is in fact under quarantine, that wasn't a hoax to keep unwanted tourists away."

"Any explanation as to why?"

"Some sort of virus. Apparently it has wiped out literally Billions of creatures on the planet."

"Even if we're not going into orbit redirect course...Give its orbit a 3,000 mile radius."

"On it." Jargon and Zeke had finally relaxed. Jargon collapsed in his own chair.

"Man, you guys woke me up for _this?_ I should go back to the pod..." The rest of us turned and looked at him. He threw his hands up. "I'm kidding! Can't take a joke?" I rolled my eyes.

"Jargon, kindly shut up."

"Will do sir."

"And drop the _sir_ , you know I hate that."

"Whatever." Jefferson leaned back in his seat.

"Alright, course has been redirected. We should be fine." Zeke collapsed at his own station once Jefferson relaxed. He wiped his brow with a handkerchief he pulled out of no where.

"Thank everything above." I gave him a small smile. Then a thought occurred.

"Jefferson...how'd they get into your computer...?" Everyone grew tense again, and within the nest second, everyone was checking their computers. I searched through mine, and luckily didn't see anything. I looked at the other two, to eventually see them sigh.

"Mine's clean."

"Mine as well."

"Well that's a relief. But why would they hide the message that way, not a lot of people would be able to find it..."

"My guess, they didn't really care if someone finds the planet or not, they only care about not letting that virus off planet."

"That's brutal man." Jargon said while spinning a pen in his fingers. I casually picked up one of my pens and chucked it across the room. Bull's eye. My pen knocked Jargon's out of his hand and they both flew into the wall, clattering to the floor. He nearly jumped out of his skin and glared at me. "Not cool dude! You nearly gave me a heart attack!" I just "hmm'ed" and turned back to my desk. I heard a _whoosh_ and raised my hand to catch the pen flying towards my head. I looked to see it was my own, and smirked.

"Now how'd ya do that?" Zeke questioned. "Ya weren't even looking."

"I was trained to use all of my senses. I heard the air around his arm move, and I timed the trow from when I threw the pen at him."

"I'll just say it was luck."

"You do that. Jefferson, how much time did that little fiasco add to our arrival time?" I heard small, rapid beeps as he clicked away on the keypad.

"About...ten hours...?!" I sighed and dropped my hand onto my head.

"What do you mean "ten hours"?!" I sat up and confusedly looked over the info on the planet designated SubNautica. "That stupid ball of water isn't even that big, the heck?"

"I don't know what to tell you Rei, that's what the calculations say." I mumbled to myself.

"Gravity is less than Earth's, so it couldn't be that...There's no noticeable debris in the orbit, especially with how far out we are...So what is making this trip drag out ten more hours?!" I spoke the last part out loud. Then the whole room lit up red. "What the heck?!" Right before the whole ship shuddered. I grabbed the edge of my desk, stopping my chair from rolling, then hit a button to activate the magnets on the legs, holding it in place. "Jefferson! What just happened?!"

"I don't know!" He ran a scan of the surrounding area, reaching up to 50 miles easily. "There's a bunch of random debris! And we're right in the middle of it!" I held on as the ship shuddered again, this time enough to knock us out of our seats. I shakily grabbed the edge of my desk and pulled myself into my chair. I strapped in and looked to see the others doing the same.

"Jefferson, get us out of here!"

"I'm working on it!" His fingers were blurs as they danced across the keypad and screen. "What in the name of-!"

The entire ship suddenly felt like it was tilting sideways, which was odd considering we had artificial gravity. I held onto the straps of the chair tightly.

"What is happening?!"

"I don't know! It's some sort of energy signature coming from the engines! I can't control them! ...Oh no."

"What?!"

"Something just flipped the Hyperdrive on!" Jargon freaked out.

"We aren't ready for a Jump!"

"Looks like you boys better hold on 'cause we don't have a choice!" I gripped the arms of my chair and let out a slow breath. Then all the stars outside warped and stretched.

 _Well this is gonna suck._


End file.
